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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A federal judge has ruled that a Utah company can dispose of foreign nuclear waste at its facility in the western Utah desert.
EnergySolutions Inc. wants to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy. After processing in Tennessee, about 1,600 tons would be disposed of in Utah.
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman used the state's veto power on an interstate compact to try to keep the foreign waste out. Congress established compacts in 1980s so states would band together to dispose of their own radioactive waste in an effort to ensure that no one state would become a national dumping ground for the toxic material.
However, only a facility in South Carolina and one in Washington state serve as official compact disposal sites. EnergySolutions' facility 70 miles west of Salt Lake City was never intended to be a compact facility, and the company challenged the compact's authority to keep the waste out in federal court, saying it can't regulate a private facility.
Late Friday, U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart ruled the compact doesn't have authority to keep the waste out.
"We have always felt confident in our legal position," Steve Creamer, EnergySolutions' CEO, said in a prepared statement. "We are pleased that this ruling ends any question on this matter."
If approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the waste would be imported through the ports of Charleston, S.C. or New Orleans.
The company's pending import license application drew an unprecedented number of public comments, most in opposition.
Tom Clements, Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator for the environmental group Friends of the Earth, said Saturday he's encouraging port officials and unions to use all legal means to keep the waste from coming on shore.
"Italy and the rest of the world must deal with their own radioactive waste and not continue irresponsible attempts to dump their dangerous material here," said Clements, who is based in Columbia, S.C.
EnergySolutions contends it needs to dispose of foreign waste here so it can develop relationships with foreign countries, and ultimately, build disposal facilities abroad. EnergySolutions has pledged to limit the amount of international waste disposed at its Utah facility to 5 percent of its remaining capacity.
However, that didn't satisfy U.S. Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Bart Gordon, D-Tenn. The congressmen contend that the disposal site, which is the only one available to 36 states, should preserve its capacity for domestic use as the U.S. increasingly looks at expanding the use of nuclear energy.
"This ruling regarding the Northwest Compact's lack of authority over importing foreign waste intensifies the need for Congress to pass my bill. I will continue to look for every opportunity to move this bill forward. It's wrongheaded to think that other countries can simply solve their own radioactive waste disposal problems by dumping thousands of tons of it in Utah," Matheson said in a statement.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
